The National Education Association's 1980 survey of school programs and practices involved sending questionnaires to 805 representative school systems serving 300 or more students. Exactly 508 usable questionnaires were returned. Thirteen topical areas were explored: (1) increases and decreases in student enrollment and numbers of teachers; (2) formats for clustering groups of grades at different levels; (3) curriculum content and course offerings; (4) instruction available in 12 specific subject areas; (5) methods and uses of student evaluation; (6) importance of and responses to discipline problems; (7) financing; (8) attempts at censorship of school courses or materials by those outside the school system; (9) provisions for educating the handicapped; (10) provisions for professional development; (11) methods and uses of teacher evaluation; (12) the nature of written plans for ending racial and sexual discrimination; and (13) the availability of 13 types of specialists. Highlights of the results of the findings in each topic area are discussed, and the responses to each question are presented in tabular form, broken down by region and by size of school system. (PGD)